DA: Reputed mobster pleads guilty in gambling case

A reputed Gambino crime family captain admitted Wednesday he ran a multimillion-dollar gambling ring, one of a slate of charges against a man authorities say helped run the once-powerful mob empire.

Nicholas "Little Nicky" Corozzo pleaded guilty in state court to enterprise corruption, the Queens district attorney's office said. He still faces murder, extortion, money laundering and bookmaking charges in a federal case that accuses more than 60 people of being Gambino associates.

Corozzo, 68, may face up to 15 years in prison at his sentencing on Dec. 1. His lawyer and nephew, Joseph Corozzo Jr., didn't immediately return a telephone call for comment Wednesday.

Authorities say the elder Corozzo was a Gambino insider close to infamous boss John Gotti.

The federal indictment alleges he was one of three captains who helped John A. "Junior" Gotti run the crime clan after his dad, nicknamed the Dapper Don, went to prison. Corozzo was seen as a potential Gambino boss until racketeering convictions in the late 1990s, federal prosecutors said.

Corozzo on Wednesday admitted overseeing a bookmaking business operating from Queens to Costa Rica that took in nearly $10 million in bets on college and professional sports over two years, prosecutors said. Several co-defendants have pleaded guilty.

"Illegal gambling has always been the bread-and-butter moneymaker for organized crime because of the huge profits that it generates, which can then be used to fund other, more insidious, forms of criminal activity," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement.

The federal indictment alleges Corozzo indulged in many of those activities, including extorting construction companies and ordering a 1996 hit that killed a rival mobster and a bystander. He has pleaded not guilty in the federal case and is scheduled in court on Aug. 5.

A judge set bail for Corozzo at $1 million Wednesday, but federal authorities were already holding him without bail.

The Gambinos were once among New York's five major Mafia families, but a string of prosecutions has sapped the Gambinos' power since John Gotti went to prison. Gotti died behind bars in 2002.